Friday, 13 December 2013

After well over 12 years of keeping hens, today I got my first double yolk! The joy of cracking open an egg only to find two for the price of one is amazing. I never take for granted how lovely it is to get fresh eggs every day and love to find the range of colours and sizes they produce but I never thought I would see a double whammy like that. Double yolk eggs are not uncommon but my previous hens have never managed to produce one in all of those years so it was a magical surprise today.

I have an idea who is responsible for this treasure today and know that I can rule out Morvah the little white one below. The egg in question was brown and she only lays the pure the white eggs and anyway she is too busy escaping the coop half the time. She was already out of the coop before this egg was produced at around 9.00 am this morning.

So who could it be out of this little lot?

Charity, she was a tiny ex battery hen that used to lay eggs all day, now she doesn't have to and she is growing into a beautiful plump hen. Could she be bothered to go to twice the trouble when there is so much fun to be had in the garden?

Tegan and Tamara the twins. They look like butter would not melt in their beaks but did they hatch out a plan between them?

Lamorna, she is the biggest of the lot but size is not everything. She is a quite a scary bird with very odd blue feet.

So now armed with your evidence can you crack the puzzle who done the double?

'This book is worth buying'

'Trust me - I'm a chicken!'

Inside (and out) of the chicken coop

Hello and welcome to my blog. I hope you have fun viewing some of the photos and stories, a lot of them are aimed at the younger generation, but hope will appeal to anyone who loves keeping chickens as pets. I have been keeping chickens for several years now, they really inspire my writing as they are very comical. My original hens inspired me to write my book 'One Hundred Ways For A Chicken To Train Its Human' which was published by Hodder and Stoughton in March 2007. Now this little clan keep me blogging about them.

Apart from my hens, I do write other stuff too, I am trying to get my Novel - Red Kite, Published but it's so difficult without an agent, and trying to find an agent is equally as hard. However I shall not give up - that's the one thing I am certain of. In the meantime I am writing freelance magazine articles and children's stories.

Gentlemen of the River - Phyllis Blakemore

I am very proud to announce that my Mother has just had her book published. ' Gentlemen of the River - The last Coracle men of the Severn Gorge' is a lovely book about the lives of the coracle men who spent most of their lives around the River Severn in Ironbridge. It spans the generations of the Rogers family who had a long history of coracle making. My Mom knew Eusty very well as she grew up in Ironbridge. He was the very last of the coracle men of that time. I lived there for some time too and he was a wonderful character. It was very sad when he died on January 31 2003 as a lot of skill and a huge amount of memories went with him.

The photographs show a glimpse of what life was like in Ironbridge before it was a major tourist attraction and helps to tell the story of an ancient craft which is still going strong with the modern day coracle makers of today.

It is published by Stenlake Publishing Ltd and priced at a very reasonable £7.99.

Mom with her book

Gentlemen of the River

Barmouth 2009

We recently took my Mom to Barmouth for a weekend break and had hours of fun on the beach by drawing animals in the sand. We had limited time to create our sand art, as the sea was fast on our heels. My Mom really surprised me when she drew a perfect Micky Mouse, which I feel was good enough for any comic of today. Our chickens were not so good, and they were soon to be washed away by the tide, but the memories of that time on a deserted beach as three adults being children again will remain as a lovely end to the summer of 2009.